Monsters Under the Bed
by QuimbyCub
Summary: Sophie looks under Nate’s bed. During 2.01 "The Beantown Bailout Job"


**Title:** Monsters Under the Bed  
**Author:** Quimby13  
**Fandom:** Leverage  
**Rating:** K+/T (f-bomb)  
**Pairing:** Nate&Sophie (sorta)  
**Word Count:** 1712  
**Setting:** During 2.01 "The Beantown Bailout Job"  
**Summary: **Sophie looks under Nate's bed.

Nate had left the condo to check on Zoe. He told the crew what to while he was out, their parts in the scam, and said to meet back at the bar in two hours. Sophie had two hours alone in Nate's new house. What couldn't she do in two hours? She took a long hot shower, using Nate's shampoo so she could feel like he was with her all day, she's okay with being that much of a teenage girl, and even then she had an hour to spare.

She padded out of the bathroom; towel wrapped around her body, and was halfway to the door when an excellent opportunity caught her eye. She glanced over her shoulder, tucked the corner of the towel tightly inside itself and walked towards Nathan's bed. Sophie flattened herself out on her stomach and peered under the bed. It was dark, but she could see… Something. Her fingers curled around a cardboard edge of a pizza box and pulled it out from under the bed. Nate wouldn't keep an old take-out box around, unless it was being used to hide something.

The box was worn, but not terribly ancient, a few water stains on top, the edges torn and creased, little things showed that this box had had a hard life, if not a long one. Sophie knew she should just push the box back in its hiding place, pretend she never went poking around, but it was too tempting. She was a criminal; after all, show her a noose and all she sees is a loophole. In this case, her loophole was just that it Nate had something important he wouldn't keep it lying around.

As she pulled lid up, she thought over what the carton might hold: _Probably just dirty magazines, or something from his past. Something he didn't want to advertise. But what if was personal? Pictures of Sam or Maggie? Did she want to see that?_ Sophie sat back on her heels and took a deep breath. Slowly she opened the container and looked inside. At first she wasn't sure what it was, and wasn't sure if she could touch it. Then she recognized what sat before her as IYS profiles. Four folders, thick folders, sitting in an old Pizza hut box; they were tiled across the box, but all there.

Sophie looked over the file fronts. Each was a different color, had a picture clipped to the front, and had a list of names scrolled across. Eliot's was red, perhaps because he is violent, his picture was a mug shot that must have been taken when he was twenty-three, and the list of names only had five. Hardison's file was green, his picture was more recent, him being newest to the game, and he only had two known aliases. Parker's file was orange, her picture black and white and appeared to be from a security camera, her name list read simply "PARKER".

When Sophie got to her own file, she hesitated, just for a moment, before looking it over. The folder's cover was pink and her name list ran the entire length of the page and ended in "See inside for complete list", and it was still probably missing a few. Her picture, she pulled off the page and held into the light. It was not like the others' photos. Hers, in fact, was half a snapshot from when she and Nate had met in Mexico while they were both running cons, separately. Five years ago at a bar, too much tequila, she could remember that much, but that was when she fell in love with him. They had taken that picture the second night they were there. It was of both of them, but only Sophie was visible on this half of the picture…

The picture he gave his company to track her. Something about that really irked her. He had no right to do that to her. Where the hell did he get off..? _Why does he even have these things?_ She thought. _It's rubbish. _She opened her file and reads over her list of crimes, getting angrier at every word.

Then she heard footsteps coming up the stairs and realized there was no escape. Flight or fight? Sophie'd take flight any day, if it was an option. But it wasn't so she picked up the pizza box/file folder and through it onto the bed. Still clutching her picture in her hand. Nathan turned into his bedroom and saw Sophie sitting on his bed, wrapped in a towel, hair hanging wet and sticking to her cheeks. She was stunning, but it was both her beauty and her surprise presence stunned him. It took him a second, but his eyes found the files on the bed and the displeased look set on Sophie's face. His eyes jumped back to her face as he tried to talk.

"Don't bother." She huffed, standing and striding up to him. "Why the fuck do you have this?" She asked, her body close enough to his that he could smell his shampoo on her. She was gesturing to the files but she had the picture from her file in between her fingers. She waited for an answer.

Nate just looked at her, unsure of what to say. He walked past her to the bed and looked at the files. Shaking his head he picks up Eliot's file. "He started working as a hitter when he was fifteen," Nate looked up at Sophie and back to the file. "He didn't get caught 'til he was almost twenty. That's the mug shot from the arrest." He pointed out the picture. Nate talked as if he was proud, almost fatherly. Then he picked up Hardison's file. "Now he," Nate laughed, "Hacked into government computers for kicks when he was twelve." He thumbed through the folder. "Made fake IDs and credit cards by seventeen. The kid had skills." He pointed Hardison's picture. "Senior photo."

Sophie had to laugh as watched Nate. She leaned against the wall and read him. He really cared about the team; he was almost fatherly as he looked over the files.

Then he picked up Parker's, and she swore she heard him sigh. "Parker named herself after the town she first committed a crime in: Parker, Kansas. Her parents died before she could talk. Between the list of placements and the medical record of broken bones and injures from her time in the system her juvenile records are twice as thick as this thing." He shook the folder a liitle. "She was shoplifting by six, stealing cars by fifteen, she broke into cash registers after stores were closed," Nate handed Sophie a very grainy, black and white photo of a young Parker. "then vaults. It wasn't until she was twenty or so that she got in to big stuff." He smiled at the thought. Handing Sophie the main photo he commented; "that's from a Tiffany's in New York."

Nate shuffled the three folders back into the box and picked up the last file: Her file. "You ran away at fifteen from a very comfortable home in Kensington and Chelsea, you grifted and stole up until your eighteenth birthday, after that you found a sugar daddy," Nate was no longer looking at the dossier. He was staring at Sophie. "Who you proceeded to rob blind." There was no humor or admiration in his voice this time. "From then on out you either acted or conned to get what you wanted." He reached for the photo, but she shook her head. "Fine, that was from—" She cut him off.

"I know what it's from you arrogant—" She was at a loss. "I don't know why you thought it was okay to give this to your company. Why did you use this against me? Tell me that." Her eyes were starting to glaze with tears and her voice was wavering. When he didn't answer she just sighed and reached out for him. For a moment, he thought she was going to slap him, and he would have taken it. Instead she grabbed his hand and pulled him up. "Come on." She huffed out, angrily dragging him out the door and down the stairs.

"Sophie," Nate whispered, trying to calm her. "What—" He stopped as he watched her dig through her purse and pull out a folded up scrap of…Paper?

Now she was crying. She smoothed it out in her palms and held it next to the picture of herself from the pizza box. It was a photograph, or part of one. She turned the pieces around and held them out to Nate. The side she added was the other half, the half with Nate. When you saw the whole picture, it showed how much love was there, between them. It was there, visibly almost, in the tear they had created when they had gone their separate ways. Nate saw it, he didn't want to but…And he could hardly believe she had the picture from that long ago. "There. I thought that night meant something. Then you went and let your bosses have it. I loved that photo, I loved the time we spent together when it was taken, I loved you when it was taken, Nathan. I just I can't believe you did that." Tears were running down her clean cheeks, but her voice was still more pain than sorrow. "I can't believe I kept that all this when you didn't even care."

"He took the pictures and went to his desk. He found a roll of Scotch tape and smoothed it over the rip, rejoining the two parts. He gave it back to his grifter and tried to smile, weakly, but made an effort. "I'm sorry. It was a job. We both got work from each other back then. But that was back then. You're a different person now, I'm a deferent person. We all are." He drew her eyes to his with a finger under her chin. "I know tape's gonna fix anything, but it's a start."

She leaned in to him and kissed his cheek. "You're shredding those files. No amount of tape will fix that if the others find out."

**A/N: Hate the end.**


End file.
